Saturday, June 20, 2009

An article I found somewhat true but also very offiensively false

Counterpoint: Mixed-married and interfaith couples are a fact of Diaspora Jewish lifeBy David Forman

The commenters already jumped on him for the most obvious thing: to refer to converts as lesser Jews is not cool. While on the other hand, someone who converts for marriage and only for marriage might not be such a great convert. On the other hand, most who seem to convert for marriage, really didn't convert JUST for marriage. Many, many times I find that someone is converting and they have a Jewish fiance. People probably would think automatically, one of "them."

Some examples I know of of people that convert while engaged to a Jew follow.

She converted Reform, then she got on Eharmony.com looking for a Jewish spouse. After all, she thought she was Jewish. Since he had a cousin who frummed out with the loobies, they found out she wasn't really Jewish. He is becoming more religious with her conversion as he is attending the classes with her.

Patrilineage Jews (products of intermmarriage or bad maternal conversion) think they are Jewish and don't discover until they go to get married. Therefore they convert while preparing to marry. However, they thought they were Jewish all along. In fact, I see many who convert that thought they were Jewish all along.

Also, sometimes, a gentile who had been thinking about converting starts dating a Jew and they decide it's a sign from Hashem that they should convert. Sometimes a couple meets while the gentile is studying towards conversion. Let's not forget that Jews meet someone who already converted.